Our ability to keep attention
focused on one person or one activity, for more than a few seconds, is surprisingly poor, and may be deteriorating.
When busy with multiple commitments
and deadlines, we typically only pay partial attention to the person or
task at hand. A sizable portion of our attention is on what happened in
the past, and what may happen later. The internet, emails, smartphones
etc just compound our "continuous partial attention." Ellen Rose's article: http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/antistasis/issue/view/1390
This way of being short-changes the
person or task we're with, is very inefficient, error-prone, stressful,
and makes us feel divided. We only feel authentic, and not surprisingly, we're only fully functional, when we're fully
present.
Can we really be professionally detached most of the day, then expect ourselves to be able to switch over to being whole with ourselves, family and friends?
“I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will
come. I don’t do things halfheartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can
expect half-hearted results. That’s why I approach practices the same way I
approached games. You can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. I couldn’t dog it
during practice and then, when I need that extra push late in the game, expect
it to be there.” Michael Jordan, NBA MVP 1988, 1991, 1993, 1996, & 1998.
“Growth fundamentally means an enlarging and expanding of one’s horizons, a growth of one’s boundaries, outwardly in perspective and inwardly in depth. … Growth is reapportionment; re-zoning; re-mapping; an acknowledgement, and then enrichment, of ever deeper and more encompassing levels of one’s own self.”
Wilber K. No boundary. Eastern and Western approaches to personal growth. Shambhala, Boston, 1979.
Can we really be professionally detached most of the day, then expect ourselves to be able to switch over to being whole with ourselves, family and friends?
“Growth fundamentally means an enlarging and expanding of one’s horizons, a growth of one’s boundaries, outwardly in perspective and inwardly in depth. … Growth is reapportionment; re-zoning; re-mapping; an acknowledgement, and then enrichment, of ever deeper and more encompassing levels of one’s own self.”
Wilber K. No boundary. Eastern and Western approaches to personal growth. Shambhala, Boston, 1979.
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